Vanes with Helical?

[mtnhntr]

Okay, I searched the threads and am not finding quite what I'm looking for - so I'll post.

In preparation for my bighorn hunt this August, I'm making the jump to vanes to remove moisture (rain) as a variable for impacting my arrows. I have both straight and right helical clamps for my Bitzenburger jig, but since I've never ran vanes of any sort I wanted to ask what do other guys do?

I crest all of my arrows myself and have recently been running 3" RH shield feathers - so I was just going swap those feathers for vanes and put a RH on the vanes....thoughts? Being they're a composite material I wasn't sure if I should run a helical on them.

 

[mlob1one]

I run a rh on my arrows. It has helped my arrow flight with broadheads and has stabilized my flight.
Since you have both jigs, I'd recommend that you try both with your arrows and broadheads to see which tunes and flies more easily.

Good luck on your sheep hunt!

Sent from my SM-G935P using Tapatalk

 

[Skyhigh]

I run a helical on blazer and heat vanes, which are very stiff. It works pretty well for me. I would imagine if you take your time it should work out well enough. Longer vane options are usually a bit softer material, and in my opinion are easier to work with than the short blazer type. Good luck on your sheep hunt!

 

[pingpong7]

Helical vanes all day long, more stability and accuracy in arrow flight, you lose a little speed due to wind drag, but well worth it.

 

[Backpack Hunter]

I run a pretty hard helical on my vanes as well.

 

[ezmorningrebel]

i think if you shoot fixed blades it's a no brainer to run helical. i'll take as much help as i can get at the expense of a few fps.

 

[sim22mie]

I'd fletch up a couple of each in a couple different vanes and just shoot them and see. Maybe a Blazer in Helical and Blazer in an Offset. Max Stealth in a helical and a Max Stealth in an offset. Heck, even mess with 4 fletch if you want (or any other vane you'd like to mess with). Shoot them with the broadheads you're going to shoot at various distances and check your best groupings. It's a matter of tradeoffs with each setup, but bottomline is your grouping and consistency.

 

[mtnhntr]

Thanks for all the feedback!

I've never toyed with anything like this before, and I've taken a good many animals over the years well beyond 100 yards with my setup. I'd just been running it for so long that I needed the nudge to change it up to get everything a bit more "weather proof". Heck, just last year I changed from running 5" feathers to 3" and thought the world was going to implode. I was blaming the paper tuning issues on the new bow, but maybe the fletchings had more of an impact than I thought. It was a brand new Mathews HTR and I was having a hell of a time getting it to tune up. I even took it back to the dealer and they were giving me a run-around about why it wouldn't paper tune... I've shot Hoyt's for 18 years and always been able to produce a bullet hole at any distance, but this Mathews was not doing it. Now y'all have me thinking that these fletchings may be part of the issue.

 

[Brendan]

If your bow is in tune and you make a good shot - fletchings have almost zero impact. That's why you can get a bare shaft to hit dead on with a fletched arrow (Again, tuned bow, good form on the shot). If you were having issues paper tuning and getting a bullet hole - my guess is it was something other than the fletchings you were using.

Where fletchings become important is with broadheads, especially fixed blades, if your bow isn't in perfect tune, or if you make a less than perfect shot (which is very likely in hunting scenarios).

I personally run 3 x 3" vanes with a helical. I've used AAE Max Stealth and Flex Fletch SK300 with good success so far. Never had any issues stabilizing any of the fixed blades or mechanicals I've shot with either. I also run a wrap on the rear of my arrows. It's made it easier for me to get good adhesion, and then also easier to clean up the arrow and re-fletch it if needed.

The only experience I had with Matthews - A guy I was helping get his broadhead tuned had to move the rest the opposite direction than I would have on my hoyt to get the broadheads and field points to converge...

 

[mtnhntr]

If your bow is in tune and you make a good shot - fletchings have almost zero impact. That's why you can get a bare shaft to hit dead on with a fletched arrow (Again, tuned bow, good form on the shot). If you were having issues paper tuning and getting a bullet hole - my guess is it was something other than the fletchings you were using.

Where fletchings become important is with broadheads, especially fixed blades, if your bow isn't in perfect tune, or if you make a less than perfect shot (which is very likely in hunting scenarios).

I personally run 3 x 3" vanes with a helical. I've used AAE Max Stealth and Flex Fletch SK300 with good success so far. Never had any issues stabilizing any of the fixed blades or mechanicals I've shot with either. I also run a wrap on the rear of my arrows. It's made it easier for me to get good adhesion, and then also easier to clean up the arrow and re-fletch it if needed.

The only experience I had with Matthews - A guy I was helping get his broadhead tuned had to move the rest the opposite direction than I would have on my hoyt to get the broadheads and field points to converge...

Yeah until I bought this Mathews I was able to shoot shafts and get bullet holes at various distances for the better part of 17 years shooting. So needless to say I was a little disappointed with this bow. It's super smooth and is accurate, but annoying not being able to be the bullet holes in paper - now it's not far off, but I would have expected better. IMHO

 

[Brendan]

Yeah until I bought this Mathews I was able to shoot shafts and get bullet holes at various distances for the better part of 17 years shooting. So needless to say I was a little disappointed with this bow. It's super smooth and is accurate, but annoying not being able to be the bullet holes in paper - now it's not far off, but I would have expected better. IMHO

Best I can tell you is try moving the rest the opposite direction than you think you should to test results. Granted I wasn't shooting the bow (Halon 32 I think) when I witnessed this, just watching and offering advice...

Also - I personally don't paper tune any more. Because an arrow oscillates leaving the bow, you can get "false tears" depending on how close the paper is and how fast your fletchings clean up flight and how stiff your arrow is... My method is to bare shaft tune out to 20-30 yards and then confirm broadheads hit with field points after that...